Fredericton mother of 5 says change to length of school day will have unintended impact
CBC
Fredericton's Lily Smallwood says the provincial government's decision to add time to the school day for the youngest students is creating the opposite situation for those in the upper elementary grades.
Smallwood has five children — four in the public school system — and she said their new September schedules change everything.
"I understand the reasons behind it. I just don't know if the benefit for K-2 justifies such a drastic change," she said.
Earlier in the year, the New Brunswick government wrote a letter to school districts informing them that beginning in September, kindergarten to Grade 2 students will be dismissed one hour later than they are now, bringing the younger students in line with students in grades 3 to 8.
One of Smallwood's children will be entering Grade 4 at Garden Creek School this fall, and she was surprised to see that his day will be shorter than it was this year because of the change.
Students in Fredericton have a half day on Wednesdays and students in Oromocto have a half day on Fridays, but for all other days of the week at Garden Creek, K-5 students will start school at 8:10 a.m. and dismiss at 2:30 p.m.
"In order to expand the learning time for K-2s, they're actually going to be reducing in-class time for the grades three, four and five students," said Smallwood.
WATCH | 'I just don't know if the benefit for K-2 justifies such a drastic change':
She also said that age group encompasses the students who were affected by COVID-19 lockdowns in their early educational years.
So she worries about that setback, coupled with the decreased learning time, starting next year.
Smallwood recalled as well that her own children were already exhausted and falling asleep on the bus ride home when they were in K-2, even without the extra hour.
David McTimoney, the Anglophone West superintendent, said the district was tasked with adjusting times based on the collective agreement, which defines the amount of instructional time required per day. Whenever possible, the district likes to go with the maximum time in the acceptable range, he said, but that wasn't possible for about one-third of schools this year.
McTimoney said the schedule changes came from determining how it would be possible to get everyone home by bus efficiently.
"We didn't see that significant shift outside of Fredericton and Oromocto because those bus schedules were already working quite well," he said.
Aggressive patients and lack of security are making nurses feel unsafe in a rural Western Manitoba emergency union, says the Manitoba Nurses Union.
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.